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George Sowden, an Industrial Designer

George Sowden, the Leeds-born industrial designer, came to Milan to work for Olivetti in 1971 and never left. Since then, he has designed hundreds of objects, from critter-like computers and peripherals to housewares, appliances, furniture and even writing instruments, for companies like Alessi and Pyrex. His pieces are highly tactile and elegant — except, of course, those created when he was a founder, with the late Ettore Sottsass, Nathalie du Pasquier and others, of Memphis, the loose collective of bad boys and two girls fooling around with postmodernism in the 1980s. (The name came from the Bob Dylan song, which was playing late one drunken evening when the young designers were trying to figure out what to call themselves.)

Now 58, Mr. Sowden, right, is designing under his own name for the first time, with a line of housewares, beginning with a porcelain coffee maker he calls the Sowden SoftBrew. It’s a graphically pleasing object, and owes much to the iconography of a teapot. Its technology is similar to a French press, except there’s no pressing (a violent act, in Mr. Sowden’s view). A stainless steel cylinder with nearly microscopic holes slides into the pot, and in goes your coffee and hot water. Four to eight minutes later, voilà! The porcelain is handmade, a very old-fashioned piece in its way, and the filter — perforated stainless steel — is a result of a cutting-edge technology. Both parts are manufactured in China, at factories commissioned by Mr. Sowden. This reporter admired the SoftBrew’s rooster look, and enjoyed her morning coffee using it.

This coffee is delicious — certainly better than drip. I’m not discerning enough to rate the taste compared to coffee made with a “violent” press, but as a coffee addict I do like that the pot stays warm for at least an hour, allowing for multiple hot cups of coffee. Clearly, porcelain is a better heat-keeper than glass, right?

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The industrial designer George Sowden.Credit
Dave Yoder for The New York Times

Yes, it retains the heat because there is more material and the heat exchanged into the air is slower. Ritual tea drinkers will always warm the pot so that the temperature of the water is not immediately dispersed to the ceramic and then to the air.

Your objects always look so animated, even if they’re not overtly critter-like.

That’s something I believe in: objects have identity, objects create identity. The objects I design are animated by what I put into them but also by what other people put into them. It’s not enough to leave it to other people to make the objects.

That is why Italian designers became so good. All the manufacturers used to be here in Milan, so the designers were 100 percent connected to them. Over the past few decades, they’ve gone away and designers have lost that connection. You can’t just make a drawing and away it goes. With the Sowden Collection I am overseeing everything that is manufactured. I am learning from the people who are making it while they are making it.

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The new porcelain and stainless steel coffeemaker, the Sowden SoftBrew.Credit
Dave Yoder for The New York Times

Porcelain factories are fantastic. They’ve been making porcelain for 2,000 years. Everything is made by hand; there are no machines. Even if you are mass-producing, you have to keep your eye on things. It could start out round and finish up square. It’s not a question of control. It’s a question of collaboration.

How many objects have you designed, and what are your favorites?

I have designed a lot of things over the years. Hundreds, not thousands. My favorite objects, that’s the subject of another interview.

Let’s hear about the coffee problem.

We treat coffee very badly. We’ve invented a lot of very odd ways of making coffee: filters, which take the oil out of the coffee; plungers, which mash and crush the grinds; even the espresso machine. What I came down to is, half the problem is keeping the beans out of the water. It’s actually a very simple idea — the filter, from a technological point of view — because it’s all about the size of the holes. It’s a photo-etching technology, which relies on very expensive equipment used for micro-engineering products. I stumbled across it when I was visiting a porcelain factory in China. Some people, when they are tourists, go to churches or museums. I go to factories.

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Credit
Dave Yoder for The New York Times

How are the Italians reviewing your new pot?

Espresso coffee can be awful.

O.K., but do your Italian friends like your new coffee?

[Chuckles] We all have our ways of getting used to things. They can’t understand how Americans drink these huge cups of coffee.

So it’s not their cup of coffee?

Let’s not talk too much about their espresso. I’m not trying to teach the Italians to drink American coffee.

The four-cup SoftBrew pot is about $50, and the eight-cup size is about $60; available Friday at some Oren’s Daily Roast locations. Information: (212) 348-5400 or orensdailyroast.com.

A version of this article appears in print on September 30, 2010, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: Respecting the Identity of Objects, Right Down to the Coffee Beans. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe